Friday 17 October 2014

Almond Snowball Cookies


These Almond Snowball Cookies are one of the easiest homemade goodies I have ever made!



Instead of the usual way of beating butter and sugar with an electric beater, the cookies are made using my Bosch MaxoMixx hand blender set. Simply place flour, sugar, salt, ground almond and diced butter into the chopper set, process the mixture into fine crumb (within 10 seconds),



transfer to a mixing bowl, add in some vanilla extract and mix it into the crumbs. The mixture is on the dry side as there is no liquid added (other than the 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract), as such, you will need to gather, press and squeeze the crumbs together to form the dough. This can easily be done within a minute of two, manually by hand.



The technique to form these cookies balls is once again, to press or squeeze the dough in your palm before rolling and smoothing it into round balls. Children will have fun making these ;)



The cookies are baked at 160 degC,  a much lower temperature than the norm of 180 degC, as the doughs may crack too much if the temperature is too high.



The recipe uses a lot less butter than most cookies, yet, they still produce a nice buttery flavour :)



The texture of these cute morsels is slightly soft and crumbly, somewhere between crunchy cookies and melting moments. They are delightful treats to go with an afternoon cup of tea, and of course, they can be enjoyed any time of the day :)



Almond Snowball Cookies

Ingredients:
(makes 18 cookies)

120g cake flour
40g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
50g ground almond
50g unsalted butter, cold, diced into small cubes
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

icing sugar for dusting


Method:
  • Preheat oven to 160deg C.
  • Place cake flour, caster sugar, salt, ground almond followed by the diced unsalted butter in the container of the Bosch MaxoMixx XL chopper. Process using Speed 4 for 15 seconds until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
  • Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl. Add pure vanilla extract and mix with a spatula. Gather and press the mixture together with hand to form a dough.
  • Divide dough into 15g portions, press, roll and smooth each portion into round balls. Place on baking tray lined with parchment paper.
  • Place at middle rack of the oven and bake at 160degC for 15 to 18mins until the cookies are lightly browned.
  • Leave to cool on wire rack. Dust with icing sugar and store in air-tight container.




17 comments:

Kimmy said...

Hi HHB, lovely cookies but now is not the time for me to make them right away. Bookmarked to try later cos' I going on holiday soon.. Thanks for sharing.

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Kimmy, how exciting! enjoy your holidays and have a nice trip :D
I am planning for my year end self drive trip I am already feeling very excited ;)

Amy Baking Diary said...

Hi HHB, you haven't been baking for awhile.... happy to see your post. Lovely cookies! :D

What's Baking?? said...

Great looking cookies. Wish I can taste it! ��

albathn said...

it's look good

Nicole said...

Hi HHB it's such a joy to see your bakes, really inspired me to try baking. For now I have tried your wholemeal banana cake and was well-received by my family. Going to try this almond cookies as preparation for upcoming CNY cookies giveaway. Thanks!

Wonni said...

Hello HHB,
I could imagine to bake these cookies for my son (1 year old), but he does not have any back teeth. So I wanted to ask how tight the consistency of these cookies is? Whether they are soft and dissolve in the mouth?
Regards

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Nicole, hope you will like this recipe as well :)

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Wonni, these are not melt in the mouth cookies...you may want to try these German Cookies instead: http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.sg/2011/05/journey-down-baking-trail-cookies.html

Wonni said...

Thanks for the link. It is not is easy to find a recipe for cookies that are soft and easy to eat.
I want to try those snowball cookies anyway, but I have no Bosch MaxoMixx XL chopper. I have just a regular food processor with two stirring rods. Will it work with it?

Jola8000 said...

They look yummy

Happy Homebaker said...

For this recipe you can use a regular food processor or simply use a fork(or your fingertips) to cut/rub in the butter into the flour mixture.

Wonni said...

Hi HHB,
wonderful, then let´s start baking! nothing stands in the way =)
You are really helpful and you answer all questions. So a willingness to help is very rare. I have another question for you. Would you be so kind and click on the next link? It appears a survey, which I have created. I perform it for my bachelor thesis. It's about blogs on the internet. The survey is short and completely anonymous. Would you do me that favor? And anybody else can click on that Link, too. It would help very much.
Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sdMatVGQ369v3WP7SgiMvIrMCfbqzUxTo0lq2kvXL_4/viewform?usp=send_form
Regards

shirley said...

Hi is this hand mixer really good or is there other brand that you can recommend? thks

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi, I do not know of other brands as this is my first hand blender.

Anonymous said...

Hi

As referred to your answer "simply use a fork(or your fingertips) to cut/rub in the butter into the flour mixture". Does it mean just mix all butter, sugar, flour, saltand almond using hand?

Or isit possible to do it recipe using normal elective mixer instead of hand blender?

Jas


Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Jas, these cookied are made using the 'rubbing in method', use fork or your fingertips to rub in cold butter to the flour. Then add in the other ingredients and mix by hand to form the dough. I dont think normal mixer will work well.